Sermon - 7/5/26

Year A – Pentecost 6; Lectionary 14 – July 5, 2026 Pastor Megan Floyd               Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30   Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, from the Holy Spirit, our Sustainer, and from Jesus Christ, who invites all who are weary to come to him, and he will give you rest. *** "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" That is the question hanging over our Gospel today. John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus with that question because uncertainty has crept in. John had announced a Messiah who would bring justice with fire and power. He had imagined the great turning point of history arriving with unmistakable force. And now John sits in prison while Jesus spends his days eating with, connecting with, and healing the kind of people everyone else avoids… and offering mercy in ordinary places. Are you really the one? I think John and others expected something bigger… and perhaps… sometimes… we do, as well. We live in a world obsessed with the big and the dramatic. We look for the movement that changes everything overnight. We want the speech that fixes society or the election that solves all our problems. Even around this holiday weekend, with freedom in the air and national stories all around us, we are reminded how much we love grand narratives. We love decisive moments. We love fireworks. And yet Jesus answers John's question in a very different way. Theologian and Luther Seminary professor, Dr. Matt Skinner, writes that Jesus answers by showing how he is changing the world… "not in an immediate broadscale manner, but through one act of mercy at a time." One act of mercy at a time. The blind see. The lame walk… The sick are healed… The poor receive good news… Not one giant spectacle, or one dramatic takeover. Just… mercy. Mercy upon mercy upon mercy. And that seems almost too small, doesn't it? Jesus himself sounds frustrated in today's text because people keep missing what God is doing. John comes fasting and preaching judgment, and people reject him. …Jesus comes eating and celebrating and extending welcome, and people reject him too. Nothing satisfies them… Because they are looking for the wrong things. They are waiting for a Messiah who conquers through power and force… while God is sending liberation through compassion… and relationship. They are looking for grandness… while God keeps showing up in small acts of mercy. And perhaps that is still our temptation. We tend to believe that justice comes only through massive effort and enormous change… We can think that if we are not changing everything, then we are changing nothing. Except… God's work has always begun among those the world overlooks. God acts among the poor, the excluded, the burdened, the people whose lives society tries to render invisible. And God often shows up exactly where dominant voices would have us believe that nothing important is happening there… God shows up in bodies and in stories and in communities that others dismiss. God keeps revealing holy truth from the margins. Because God has this habit of beginning with what appears small. A manger… A handful of disciples… Bread and wine… Water poured over a child's head… A cross that looked like defeat. Small things that become life for the world. I was reminded of this a few days ago while talking with Rich. He shared a story from when he was in high school. One of his classmates became pregnant. And as you might imagine, people talked. There was gossip and judgment, and unfair assumptions. But Rich looked at the situation differently. He thought, regardless of everything else, a baby is coming, and a baby deserves a gift. So… he crocheted her a pair of baby booties. That was it… No grand speech… No dramatic intervention. Just a pair of baby booties. He said that, decades later… she told him that she had never forgotten that small act of kindness… Never forgotten it. And… I have been thinking about that story all week. Because that is exactly how Jesus seems to work. One small act of mercy… One person seeing another person's humanity. One interruption in the cycle of shame… One reminder that love still exists, and that a person is still deserving of dignity, even when everyone else says they do not. One pair of baby booties. We often underestimate what mercy does. Mercy changes the person receiving it, yes… but… mercy also changes the person giving it because mercy begins reshaping our hearts. Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." Now, a yoke is not exactly an inspiring image. It sounds heavy and restrictive. And it is true… that the way of Christ is not always easy because carrying this yoke guides us to keep choosing mercy in a world that often rewards cruelty. Carrying the yoke of Christ guides us to stand beside burdened people and help them bear the weight. Carrying the yoke of Christ guides us to love people others have decided are unlovable… and… to keep showing up for our neighbors, especially those who have been excluded. That can be hard… Sometimes it is easier to stay distant… and keep our heads down. Sometimes it is easier to let systems keep grinding people down because confronting those systems will cost us something. The yoke of Christ is not freedom from responsibility. But strangely, Jesus says that this yoke is easy and this burden is light. And you may wonder, how can that be? …it is because the yoke of Christ is carried together. You see, a yoke is designed for two… Jesus is not handing us a burden and sending us off alone… Jesus is carrying it with us. He says, "Learn from me" …walk beside me… stay near me… watch where I go. And where does Jesus go? …He goes toward burdened people… toward weary people… hurting people… toward those who have been pushed aside. And this is where freedom becomes important… not the freedom that we celebrated as a country this weekend, but our freedom in Christ… because our freedom in Christ is not the freedom to separate ourselves from one another. Christian freedom has never meant, "I can do whatever I want." Christian freedom means being set free for love… set free for relationship… set free for one another. Liberation through Christ… is always communal. Because if my neighbor is still carrying crushing burdens, if they remain chained by poverty or prejudice or fear or loneliness, then Christ will keep calling me toward them. Our freedom in Christ frees us to help the one still in chains. And that is where the joy is… not in standing apart, but in joining Christ where Christ already is. Because Jesus says: Come to me… Come to me weary… come to me burdened… come to me while you are still uncertain and carrying... everything. And Christ will receive you with mercy, and give you rest. Jesus says, "Come to me," and he places his yoke upon us—not the crushing yoke of shame or fear or impossible expectations—but the yoke of shared love. And then Christ teaches us to walk. One small act of mercy at a time. One kind word… One meal shared… One hand extended… One pair of baby booties. And slowly, mysteriously, the kingdom of God keeps breaking in. Not with fireworks… but with love. Not with domination… but with mercy. Not through power over people… but through liberation with people. And one day we look back and realize that Christ was the one who was foretold all along… the one who was to come. Because wherever burdens are lifted, wherever dignity is restored, wherever mercy reaches someone who thought they had been forgotten, Christ is there. Still changing the world… one small act of mercy at a time. Amen.